Questions from a DM in training!

[wizardpants]

So I'm a pretty new DM to D&D; not in a "I began playing yesterday." sense of new, but more of a "I just had to deal with my first Frenzied Beserker/World Dominating Necromancer" new. I have been handling 3.5 pretty well for about a year now, and just learned of 3.PF and its anime-inspired wonders,but there are a few questions that I don't know the answer to.

First One: What is the Masterwork material? Is it actually called "Masterwork", or is it just some really nice and quasi-rare material that holds an enchantment like steel holds an edge? I thought at first that to masterwork a weapon, you had to choose a special material to make it from, but my players quickly notified me that this is not the case, as you can dish out three-hundred gold pieces to acquire an ambiguous and arcanely-gifted metal or wood to craft from. However, no one has been able to tell me what this material happens to be.

Second One: Why is unlimited healing bad? I allowed an item in a game that allowed a player to cast Cure Minor Wounds as a standard action once per round, but when I played in his game a few weeks later I was informed that I was apparently a gullible boob for allowing such a thing (also I found this out via rejection as I attempted to craft the item). I'm aware that it's apparently overpowered, but I don't get why.

Like, is healing in between fights that big of a deal? I don't want my players to die to the horde of goblins on their way to the king, as it makes for boring deaths and a lame story to tell afterwards. While fighting said goblin king, one player is always going to be devoted to healing - with an item like this, it just makes it to where any class can be the healer as long as they're holding the healy-juju stick. And, besides, if there's a class that can throw out heals like candy, why can't the class just be lazy and make an item to do it for him?

That's all I have so far. Answers would be appreciated! And sorry if my questions are stupid. :smallfrown:

[AstralFire]

So I'm a pretty new DM to D&D; not in a "I began playing yesterday." sense of new, but more of a "I just had to deal with my first Frenzied Beserker/World Dominating Necromancer" new. I have been handling 3.5 pretty well for about a year now, and just learned of 3.PF and its anime-inspired wonders,but there are a few questions that I don't know the answer to.

First One: What is the Masterwork material? Is it actually called "Masterwork", or is it just some really nice and quasi-rare material that holds an enchantment like steel holds an edge? I thought at first that to masterwork a weapon, you had to choose a special material to make it from, but my players quickly notified me that this is not the case, as you can dish out three-hundred gold pieces to acquire an ambiguous and arcanely-gifted metal or wood to craft from. However, no one has been able to tell me what this material happens to be.

Masterwork without a special material is just carefully crafted with the normal materials.


Second One: Why is unlimited healing bad? I allowed an item in a game that allowed a player to cast Cure Minor Wounds as a standard action once per round, but when I played in his game a few weeks later I was informed that I was apparently a gullible boob for allowing such a thing (also I found this out via rejection as I attempted to craft the item). I'm aware that it's apparently overpowered, but I don't get why.

Like, is healing in between fights that big of a deal? I don't want my players to die to the horde of goblins on their way to the king, as it makes for boring deaths and a lame story to tell afterwards. While fighting said goblin king, one player is always going to be devoted to healing - with an item like this, it just makes it to where any class can be the healer as long as they're holding the healy-juju stick. And, besides, if there's a class that can throw out heals like candy, why can't the class just be lazy and make an item to do it for him?

That's all I have so far. Answers would be appreciated! And sorry if my questions are stupid. :smallfrown:

1) I think that player's a bit of an ass, really, for asking to make something that he personally thinks should never be allowed in a game he's DMing.
2) Most classes that can heal have more combat effective things that they can do during a fight than heal, given how relatively frail everything is in D&D once hit point damage has begun. 1 HP/round is laughably bad at all but the lowest levels during a fight.
3) The item's not broken as long as you're running more of a campaign where attrition isn't a problem. It's a stylistic choice, not one of quality; it sounds like you prefer things to be similar to modern video game RPGs, where the party goes into major fights at or near full resources most of the time.

[Eldariel]

First One: What is the Masterwork material? Is it actually called "Masterwork", or is it just some really nice and quasi-rare material that holds an enchantment like steel holds an edge? I thought at first that to masterwork a weapon, you had to choose a special material to make it from, but my players quickly notified me that this is not the case, as you can dish out three-hundred gold pieces to acquire an ambiguous and arcanely-gifted metal or wood to craft from. However, no one has been able to tell me what this material happens to be.

Masterwork isn't a material, it's a craft level. Basically, the game has crudely crafted weapons (in DMG, basically with -1 to stuff), normally crafted weapons (what you'd expect from a skilled smith) with no bonuses and penalties, and then Masterwork weapons, the finely crafted swords. Only masterwork weapons exist as magic weapons, but that's never really explained fluff-wise.

I guess it's just that for a weapon to be enhanced (either for it to be worth enhancing or possible to enhance), it needs to be a high quality weapon to start with. And well, nobody has ever probably heard of a crudely crafted legendary sword.


Another rule that's worth noting here is that every magic weapon always has +1 enhancement. That is, the book is full of all these weapon enhancements but they can only be applied onto magic weapons, that is weapons that are already +1. So no Keen Falchion, it has to be +1 Keen Falchion. Convenient insofar that you don't need to worry about DR/magic, hitting incorporeals or such.


Second One: Why is unlimited healing bad? I allowed an item in a game that allowed a player to cast Cure Minor Wounds as a standard action once per round, but when I played in his game a few weeks later I was informed that I was apparently a gullible boob for allowing such a thing (also I found this out via rejection as I attempted to craft the item). I'm aware that it's apparently overpowered, but I don't get why.

Like, is healing in between fights that big of a deal? I don't want my players to die to the horde of goblins on their way to the king, as it makes for boring deaths and a lame story to tell afterwards. While fighting said goblin king, one player is always going to be devoted to healing - with an item like this, it just makes it to where any class can be the healer as long as they're holding the healy-juju stick. And, besides, if there's a class that can throw out heals like candy, why can't the class just be lazy and make an item to do it for him?

That's all I have so far. Answers would be appreciated! And sorry if my questions are stupid. :smallfrown:

It's not really. Usually though, healing comes with limits. Like, normal method of downtime healing is buying a Wand of Lesser Vigor or Cure Light Wounds. You pay 750 to heal couple of hundred points out of combat. Keeps you running for a long time.

Healing Belt [Magic Item Compendium] heals 2d8 three times per day but again, it has a daily limit so you can't rely on it to top you off. About the only thing that grants you free, daily healing is using magic like Persistent Spell [Complete Arcane] on Mass Lesser Vigor [Spell Compendium] (or Necropolitan Party with Dread Necro or such). This gives everyone Fast Healing 1.


It's paradigm of the game that there's some sort of attrition; that is, taking hits isn't free but costs you something. Whether that assumption is worthwhile is up to you but it's worth noting that healing is already supercheap. It's not free though. Thus, long runs can exhaust a party's resources which gives them an extra angle to manage.

It probably won't break anything especially since healing a lot of damage 1 point at a time takes a long while and thus they're susceptible to follow-up attacks anyways for fights where they're not topped out, but it's something to keep in mind.

EDIT: Well, that's what I get for driving a trip to the train station between starting and finishing the post. I'm not sure this really counts as even getting ninja'd anymore with this much time.

[Ragnorrok]

Masterwork is not a material, it's more of a type. The cost to have an item made in masterwork quality is 300gp (600 for double weapons). It only adds +1 to attack rolls but opens up more possibilities later. Most item materials make the respective item masterwork.
Unlimited healing is not a good idea because it takes away the challenge if all that damage just goes away without a care. Perhaps have the item function a number of times per day (like 3). And also no class really throws out heals like candy. They are limited to a certain number per day (or for classes like a paladin, a certain amount).

[wizardpants]

Thank you for the prompt answers! I thought the masterwork quality was material-based just because of the skill section's mention of the masterwork component being separate from the item's, but it makes much more sense if a masterwork item is... well, just masterfully worked.

As for the healing bit, I indeed let video games influence (or mar, depending on your PoV) my game-running style quite a bit. I dislike that the party has to save all of their resources for the final boss and that my goblins just have to poke at them along the way without being too difficult, so instead I make all the goblins just as scary as the boss at the end - They just use swarm tactics instead of big-boss tactics.

To balance that, though, I give XP for each encounter based off how difficult it was for the party to handle. I.e., insta-gibbing my boss with a raging leap attack gives less XP than the group of level 1 goblin rogues, assuming the rogues almost killed the whole party and the poor cleric had to beat them by himself by funneling them all into the hallway and bashing their skulls in one by one. C'est la vie, I suppose.